Riddikulus
by lokogato-sama
Summary: Cho gets a taste of the Luna Lovegood truth. And Luna Lovegood. [LunaCho] Takes place at the end of OotP.


Loko: We've got a thing for crackpairing of late. So … here's the crackiest pairing we've done. Seriously.

Summary: Cho gets a taste of the Luna Lovegood truth. And Luna Lovegood. LunaCho. Takes place at the end of OotP.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters are the property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Inc., Raincoast Books, Warner Bros. Inc., and whatever the hell else to which he's been licensed off.

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Riddikulus

(the high building)

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_The weapon even the greatest fear is laughter._

-- Dmitri Nargles

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It happened every year: someone forgot until almost morning of departure to return something of Luna's, ran to the common room to drop it off, and got caught by Luna, collecting her stolen things.

It just hadn't happened to Cho before, and she didn't know what to do. She wasn't a mean girl, so she couldn't bring herself to laugh at Luna and leave. Still, it wasn't as if she could _apologise_ or something. It was _Luna_. So instead, she sort of stood awkwardly by the fireplace until Luna finally looked up, arms full of quills, papers, inkpots, and bizarre things like mismatched socks and what looked like half a turnip with a scowling face drawn on it.

"You have something to return." Luna stated the words rather than asked, and Cho flushed. She had an urge to pretend she didn't have anything, just so she could be insulted that Luna immediately assumed she had stolen something and storm off. She had one of Luna's earrings clutched in her hand, some kind of plant that looked rather like a mandrake, and it appeared that Luna had planned to wear the set, because she had the other one in her right ear.

"I – yeah." Cho didn't really know what to say.

"Could you put it on my pile? I can't free my hands right now." Luna always spoke as if her voice came from some distant, far-off place. Cho was suddenly jealous of Luna – wished she could find a far-off place of her own, where no-one could find her, not the ghost of Cedric, not Harry's haunted green eyes, no-one. She tossed the other earring toward Luna carelessly, and then watched with helpless horror as Luna attempted to catch it on top of her bundle, missed, tripped, and fell, scattering her things everywhere. She had to force herself not to laugh.

"Oh – I – I'm so sorry." There. She'd gotten it out. So there was no reason for her to feel as terrible as she did now.

"I'll be fine," Luna said as mistily as ever, and began to retrieve the odd assortment of items now scattered across the deep blue carpet. Cho was unexpectedly swept by a wave of pity for this odd, detached creature, and knelt as well, picking up bits of stationary with Humpled-Corn Korsnacks, or whatever it was Luna called them, stamped across the top.

"Here – I'll – I'll help." She stacked the stationary neatly and put them in a pile near Luna's feet.

"Thank you," Luna said. "No-one's ever offered to help me do this before." Cho coloured again. Ravenclaws were intelligent, and as a result, they tended to be quite snobbish. On occasion, Cho thought that they might even be worse than the Slytherins. She busied herself with picking up old editions of _The Quibbler._ A name from Luna broke off her train of thought, and Cho blinked in a startled fashion when Luna said, "Well, actually, Harry Potter offered to help me get my things back earlier tonight. Or late last night. Whichever it is. Sometimes I can't tell, and people laugh at me."

"I – I really am sorry." She felt it, abruptly – sorry because she'd stolen Luna's things with everyone else in her dormitory, sorry because Luna was so apart from the world, sorry because the world laughed at Luna because of it. Sorry because she'd hurt Harry and because Cedric was dead. Sorry because Voldemort was out there now, and the world was not going to believe Harry. Mostly she was sorry because of Harry. "I'll – I'll help you carry your things up to your room."

"Thank you," Said Luna, and that might have been that. Except as they went down the hallways toward Luna's dorm, Luna said, "You don't get on very well with boys, do you?"

Cho stopped. Cho stared. Then stared some more. Then said, "What?" and almost dropped her share of the returned objects. Somehow she'd ended up with the angry half-turnip and three or four _Quibblers_.

"You don't get along very well with boys," Luna restated. "Harry Potter's not too happy about his relationship with you. Then again, he's also not too happy because Sirius just died, so that might be it too."

"Harry – you've talked to Harry about me?" Cho asked, scandalized.

"No." Luna said placidly.

"Then how would you know that he's not happy?"

"Because he isn't," Luna said calmly, as if explaining to a small child.

"I – well - " Luna was right, Harry wasn't happy. "But what does that have to do with me not getting on well with boys? I've had other boyfriends before. I mean, I had Cedric - "

Cho realized with a start that it was probably the first time since the end of fourth year she'd been able to say Cedric's name without wanting to cry. She tried to call up the tears, and couldn't.

"I saw you and Cedric." Luna had stopped too, and was watching Cho was an odd sort of compassion, an otherworldly sympathy. Cho felt ashamed of her pity earlier, of the way she'd thought of Luna as some useless lower being. "The most you ever did was smile and look at him. You were a pretty couple, though."

"We were – I _love_ Cedric." Cho said vehemently.

"He's dead," Luna said, and began to walk again. "You loved him. But you didn't want him for a lover."

It was strange to hear 'lover' from Luna Lovegood's mouth. Luna'd never even had a boyfriend.

"No, look, Luna, what are you _saying_?" Cho hurried after the long, trailing dark-blond hair and black robes. When she'd caught up, she manoeuvred herself in front of Luna, forcing the other to stop. Somewhere inside, she thanked whoever was out there that she played Quidditch. "Luna."

"That's a nice issue of _The Quibbler_ you've got there," Luna suddenly said, eyes lighting up in a way that made her plain face pretty. "It's about Dmitri Nargles and the Chinese poet Lĭ Bái."

"What?" Cho stared, unsure whether to laugh incredulously or not. Carrying on a conversation with Luna Lovegood was turning out to be more difficult than staying awake in History of Magic, and she was a _Ravenclaw_.

"Lĭ Bái was actually a famous wizard." Luna smiled more at Cho's _Quibblers_ than at Cho. She had a dimple in her right cheek and her mouth turned up a little more on that side than the other, making her smile a strangely sweet, uneven thing. She had straight white teeth. "But he didn't want to just have to disappear, so he stole a life-extending draught from another wizard, used a Polyjuice Potion, and assumed Nargles's identity. See, Nargles was a translator at first, but then he began to write poetry. Everyone knows that Lĭ Bái wrote poetry."

"Luna, they weren't even in the same _century_." Despite herself, Cho fell into discussion mode. The situation was so absurd she felt she could have fought Boggarts with the thought of it. Imagine the _Riddikulus_ of Lĭ Bái and Nargles!

"But that's exactly it! Lĭ Bái went into hiding long enough to not rouse suspicion by suddenly reappearing with his poetry, and then stole Nargles's identity! See, it's hinted at in one of Lĭ Bái's poems. He's even told us where he decided to hide." And then, to Cho's absolute shock, Luna recited with perfect diction a Lĭ Bái poem, about a tower high enough for one to snatch stars and startle the gods by speaking too loud. She could still recall her own parents reading the poem to her, laughing when she'd asked if they could really go and take the stars.

"You – you really _are _a Ravenclaw." Cho said finally, and then turned red when she realised how that statement sounded. "I mean – that is – I mean, most people can't speak Chinese so well without professional lessons, so -"

"You didn't think I was a Ravenclaw because I believe in _The Quibbler_." Luna stated flatly, and Cho turned an even darker red. Why did Luna's words have to be so _true_?

"I – well, yeah." Cho muttered.

"A lot of people seem to think that for some reason," Luna said. Cho glanced away, embarrassed, and glanced back, unsure of what exactly to do.

"You – um, you're pretty when you're excited." She stumbled. And then wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean. "I mean it."

"Thank you." Luna said. There was another uncomfortable silence, and then Cho remembered why she was standing in front of Luna in the first place.

"What about my not getting on with boys?" She said rather loudly, and then quickly lowered her voice. Luna sighed, looking strangely similar to Hermione Granger for a moment.

"Look," Luna set down her half of her things and beckoned for Cho to come closer. When Cho did, cautiously, Luna took hold of her face and kissed her.

With a rustle of papers and _Quibblers_ and scrolls and the thunk of the unhappy half-turnip, Cho dropped everything in her arms and gasped. Luna had her _tongue_ in Cho's mouth.

And there was no reason for Cho to lean forward, to let _Luna Lovegood _kiss her, the way she hadn't kissed Harry, except she had red-hot zings of something zipping through her thighs and across her collarbone. Cedric had never tasted this smooth, with this undercurrent of scent spelling _woman woman woman_ repeatedly, a seductive mantra. She'd never had someone else's breasts pressed up against her own, tight and hard and yielding, making it quite difficult to breathe properly or think properly, tasting Luna's ethereal sweet earthly taste, and she couldn't remember when she pushed Luna against the wall and drawn back for breath before leaning down again.

Kissing another girl shouldn't have felt so _good_.

It was _Luna_.

So? Cho wondered. Luna hadn't ever had a boyfriend, and Cho had. Somewhere along the line Cho's experience took over. She shouldn't have been doing this, this groping hungry thing with Luna Lovegood in the Ravenclaw fourth-year's dormitory hallway, but she was. And it was too late to take it back, and all the Ravenclaw in her and in the world couldn't have stopped her now. She had one hand tangled in Luna's hair and the other had slipped down and she should _not_ have been so, so, _excited_ by the way Luna hollowed in at the waist and flared at her hips, a movement mirroring Cho's own body

Then Luna pushed her away, gently but firmly.

"See?" She said, only slightly out of breath. Her long hair rustled across her forehead and shoulders where Cho had taken hold of it to pull her head back, and her wide eyes stared almost distractingly at Cho. Cho couldn't speak. She could only stare at Luna's lips, red from being kissed too desperately.

"I don't get it." She said finally, blankly. "I don't _understand_."

"You don't like boys." Luna bent, beginning to reassemble the pile again.

"Of course I do. I mean, that just now – I mean – what _was_ that just now?"

Before Luna could answer, a door flew open and a head peered out. "What's going on?" A sleepy Padma Patil demanded. "Luna? _Cho_? What was that noise?"

"I dropped my things." Both Luna and Cho spoke at the same time.

"What're you doing up, Cho?" Padma snapped. Cho noticed that Luna seemed to simply not exist.

"I was helping Luna with her things," Cho said, at the same time Luna said, "I was telling her about Dmitri Nargles and Lĭ Bái."

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Padma held the door open and moved her hand at Cho, gesturing for her to go into their dormitory. "Get some sleep, Cho. Luna can deal with her things; she's done it for years. Luna, quit bothering people with your _Quibblers_."

"I need," Cho began.

"I can handle it." Luna said, and it was true that she'd already gathered most of her things together and was heading for her door.

"I'll – I'll just get the door then." Cho muttered, and opened the door for Luna. As she went through, the back of Luna's hand brushed across Cho's abdomen. Her breath faltered. Luna smiled at her and disappeared behind her curtains.

"Come _on_, Cho." Padma said irritably. Padma was always irritable when she was tired. "God, you were listening to _Loony Lovegood_ the night before we leave. You're a Ravenclaw. You know better than to not get enough sleep before the train ride."

"She had so much stuff to carry, I thought I'd help her." Cho felt self-conscious.

"You're such a bleeding heart." But Padma sounded amused as she shut the door and went back to bed.

Ensconced in her own covers, Cho fingered her side, the only place Luna had touched besides her cheeks and lips.

She felt she could have produced a _Patronus_ with that memory.

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_The high building is hundred-cĭ tall_

_We can pluck stars from the night_

_We dare not raise our voices_

_For fear of startling the gods in the sky._

– A Night's Stay On Top of A Mountain, Lĭ Bái

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words: 2192

paragraphs: 74

sentences: 186

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(You know, I suddenly realise that, since I'm re-formatting fics for post out of LJ-code, all the finishing times are ridiculously close. So actually, I finished this sometime yesterday afternoon. Yes.)

Totally pulled-from-posterior, heh. Requested by a friend on LJ. Er … please review.

Please?

lokogato enterprises inc.

31-08-05

9:46 PM


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